Impossible
by Rizzle
Summary: She wonders if she could love Draco like she does, if they were both on the same side. In the meantime, the war continues and part of her is glad.


Story Notes:

Written for Valentines Day 2009.

In the beginning, there were hostilities. This made sense and was logical.

She was a Muggleborn Gryffindor, a friend of Harry Potter and a rival for top academic ranking at Hogwarts. She was never designed to be _the_ nemesis, which was just as well because he didn't fancy having to shag Harry Potter simply because opposites were meant to attract.

They are not polar opposites.

She is not a summer breeze to his arctic chill, or anything so black and white. He is not 'evil', according to most standard definitions of the word, anyway. And she is not without her own questionable wiles. Both are accustomed to hard truths and both have the capacity to be stubborn to the point of obstinancy.

Him, especially.

In fact, if you ever chose to read their respective, lengthy, Life Resumes, you might be surprised to discover that they have quite a bit in common - though if you ever chose to tell them this to their faces, you'd be a braver person than I.  
They thrive on their differences.

Her name is Hermione Granger and at the age of eleven, she loved to read.

He is Draco Malfoy. And at the age of eleven, if you asked him to espouse on what being Draco Malfoy actually _meant_, he would stare at you with contempt and tell you that the name was enough to explain _everything_.

Oh, and he liked reading too. Still does, in fact.

As children, they learned about life, themselves and their respective abilities. Regretfully, because they are who they are, they also learned about responsibility, death, loss and what you needed to do to protect yourself and those you cared about.

Or additionally, for Draco, the _stuff_ he cared about.

They are loyal. Sometimes unquestioningly loyal.

Somewhere in the middle of the story, there was an explosion of consequence. This was the bit where decisions and ideology became actions. Where the compartment you chose to ride in on the Hogwarts Express in your first year, dictated who was firing a spell at whom seven years later.  
Neither Draco nor Hermione were ever fence-sitters from their earliest beginnings. This steadfastness was commendable in itself, for their choices in life were not made lightly. They were never bred to be bit players in what is essential Harry Potter's story.

This is why it made a twisted, almost Shakespearean kind of sense when they fell in love.

Which brings us to the _now_.

Presently, Draco's men have captured Hermione and are holding her in the living room of someone's ramshackle vacation bungalow just outside wild and woody Rutland. It is obvious from the look of the place, that its owners have not managed to get any time off work in quite a few years.

An owl was dispatched to Draco an hour ago, though no one was sure as to his whereabouts. He is not currently on assignment, which often makes him slightly harder for his men to track down should they require his presence. Despite this, they hoped the message would somehow reach him.

It is a swelteringly hot afternoon in the middle of a particularly hot summer and there isn't a breeze to speak of. This is the right kind of weather for irritation and anxiousness to nearly be a contagious condition.  
The mood in the room is best described as sticky.

Hermione is calm, however. There is little she can do, tied to a kitchen chair as she is now. She hangs her head, chin to her chest, her long, dark hair obscuring her face. The men watching her are equal parts cautious and curious. She is known for her cunning and her resourcefulness.

She is pretty, they admit to each other. Or at least prettier than the grim-faced pictures of her they see in the papers. Not that there'd be much to smile about if your photo did turn up in the Prophet lately. The news has _not_ been good, to put it lightly

"Thought she'd be taller, though," admits one of the Death Eaters.

The three individuals (two captors and one prisoner) wait in silence.

Draco sweeps in through the front door some two hours later, his mood nearly as foul as the stale, warm beer his men have unearthed from the broken refrigerator and are currently swilling.

The two Death Eaters immediately snap to attention, or make an effort to, rather. Clearly, they are in a celebratory mood, giddy at having has such good fortune. This was not the first time Hermione Granger has been brought in. Though hanging on to her was the tricky bit. The young woman has proven to be a better escapologist than the average, domestic ferret.

The men stammer their greetings and present their prize to their superior. They drag her, chair and all, over to Draco. There is a brief, ego-polishing, show and tell during which Draco is regaled with how their admittedly half-arsed plan to stalk and then kidnap Harry Potter's right hand had actually _worked_.

"She didn't know what was happening until we were right on her," boasts one of the men. He hands Draco Hermione's wand.

Draco is not impressed. His men don't understand this at first. They don't understand why he seems more enraged than euphoric when he tilts her chin up so that he can look at her. He gives her a penetrating glare that ought to bore a hole through the back of her head.

"_You. Stupid. Bitch_," he says, enunciating each syllable. Closer examination of his anger might have aroused certain suspicions, but these men are not Draco's peers, they are foot soldiers and tend to think like those used to receiving orders.

In any case, further analysis of Draco's reaction is forestalled by what he does next. He rips off his flying gloves and hits Hermione across the face with them. One of the Death Eaters flinches.

"Fuck you," she spits, quite literally. The bloody gob only just misses Draco's shoe. This is the first time she has spoken since her capture.

"If you were any more of a fool, you'd be Neville Longbottom," is Draco's stinging reply.

If the two minions thought this an odd sort of insult-exchange, they don't say so. Hermione starts to struggle against her bonds and one of the men steps forward, intent on manhandling her into behaving.

Draco holds up a quelling hand. "Do not damage her further," he says, very quietly. His men don't have time to question the order, for it is quickly followed up with, "That's my job."

The stare Draco proceeds to gives their prisoner as he strips off his flying vest is one of pure, anticipatory, animal lust. Unhurriedly, he begins unbuttoning his cuffs. The prisoner stares back, impassive, seemingly courageous in the face of whatever atrocity was surely to come.

"Ah," said the aforementioned Death Eater, sniggering, and then chuckling. The sound has more to do with tension rather than humour. He stands and nudges his companion in the ribs. "That'll be right, eh Davey? Looks like we should've had our fill earlier. There's not going to be anything left to drag back to our Master."

The other man, younger and with less mania in his eyes, looks troubled. It might have been that Davey was the sort who, for a change, did not have mother issues. And possibly even had sisters and aunts that were good and kind to him. He realizes he is a fool to have taken the Mark two years ago, but he feels he has cast his lot now.

Even so, he is a brave man to address his superior thusly: "Mister Malfoy...maybe we should just, you know...hand her over directly?"

Draco's shirt has come off. He may have started life on the pale and puny side, but the hard living of a Death Eater has rendered him fit and lightly muscled. Though not an exceedingly tall man, he still has some height and bulk over the other occupants in the room. His searing stare hasn't left their prisoner.

"I require a few hours alone with our...guest." His intent is quite clear. "Leave us. Don't return until after sunset."

Hermione's expression, meanwhile, remains nonchalant, almost challenging.

The men hurry to obey, picking up their belongings and leaving the remaining cans of warm beer behind.

"Sir," says Davey at the door, by away of goodbye. He casts a final sympathetic glance in Hermione's direction. Footsteps are briefly heard outside and then there is nothing but the silent heat.

Draco waits until he is certain the men are gone and not merely dropping eaves. Unhurriedly, he casts a spell that seals the door and windows. A muffling charm follows, which unfortunately sends the temperature up by a fraction. Through all this, not a word is spoken until he has finished untying Hermione.

She stands stiffly, wincing a little as she stretches out the knots in her aching shoulders and arms.

"Thank you," she says emphatically, and then punches her lover hard in his midsection.

Draco doubles over for a moment, arm over his abdomen. Hermione wipes the blood at her mouth with the back of her hand, staring at him with a mixture of anticipation and fondness.

"I think I deserve that," he coughs, straightening up.

The wildness leaves her eyes. She sighs, steps forward and places gentle fingers to the deep cut above his right eye that is nearly healed. "Was this from Ron's raid last month?"

Draco takes her hand and presses a warm kiss into her palm. "Yes."

"It looks like you're still walking with a slight limp. I can't believe you haven't had that broken ankle treated yet. Don't you Death Eaters have your own healers?"

Her nagging always amuses him. "The ankle is fine. If it was broken I wouldn't have been able to kick Seamus Finnegan's' face in last week, now would I?"

Hermione snorts. His logic is indisputably _male_. "You broke his nose," she admonishes.

"An improvement, surely."

"If I had any sense I would take you into custody right now." Her voice sounds a little smaller.

This time it is Draco who snorts. He catches her fidgeting hands and brings them to his hard stomach, where she hit him only moments earlier. Idly, her index finger circles the rim of his navel. He watches her. Hermione Granger is not known for being unpredictable or flighty, but with him, she allows herself the luxury of being, well, _bad_, for lack of a better word.

She is a bundle of continuing revelations.

Draco doesn't know what it is they have together, but he does know it gives him a strange sense of peace. It does the opposite for her, which is just as well because that is what she craves.

He speaks seriously now. "You did a very stupid thing letting yourself be taken today."

She doesn't reply. Her fingernails rake up his belly, leaving faint, red trails along the tight, white skin. He hisses, catching her hand. "Confounds the mind how you seem to care about all the injuries everyone else gives me. The ones I sustain from you are negligible, aren't they?" he asks, gruffly.

Hermione flicks out the tip of her tongue to taste the cut at the corner of her mouth. "Not like you've asked me how I'm doing lately," she whispers back. Her pupils are dilated, her eyes half-lidded. He wonders if she has taken anything she shouldn't have, to chemically enhance her planned, sordid little adventure.

It wasn't outside the realm of possibilities when it came to the Hermione he knew.

His stare rakes over her very practical attire of a light cotton blouse and denim. His men had, according to the report, captured her en route to the supermarket. They'd been watching her for some time, taking note of her routine activities, determining when might be the best time to make the grab. Poor bastards. If only they knew how they'd been played from the moment she'd spotted their less than subtle hunting.

He hooks his fingers in the waistband of her pants and roughly pulls her against him.

"So sorry, Granger. How remiss of me. How are you keeping?" he says against her injured lips.

"Could be better, Malfoy." She runs her fingers down his bicep, taking simple pleasure in his masculine strength. She marvels at how just looking at him seems enough to make liquid heat snake down from her belly to pool between her legs. She can feel his heart hammering against her own chest. Draco's immediate, intense physical reaction to her is always flattering. "Bit hard going, what with the war and everything. You know how it is."

His lips rub against hers, even as the lower half of him does the same. "I know."

"Mind asking your boss to turn himself in like a good, Dark Lord, then?"

"'Good' Dark Lord is an oxymoron, Granger."

"What does that make a 'good' Death Eater then?"

He stares into her eyes. His thumb rubs back and forth across her cheekbone.

"Suicidal."

Hermione instantly sobers. She doesn't like it when he's real. Her hands around his waist, which had previously been light and caressing turn fierce and clinging. She laments the fact that she can't seem to give him up.

"Come back with me this time. I'll see to it that we give you a fair trial. I will personally request a formal pardon. You may only end up serving a token, minimal sentence in exchange for information."

He laughs. She stares at him. Their meetings are never situations where humour features prominently. "No. I like the view from outside Azkaban, thank you very much."

Hermione licks her lips. "I can't keep getting captured and you can't keep letting me escape. No one is going to believe we are that incompetent."

He nuzzles her neck. "They'll believe that before they'll believe the truth."

She shakes her head. "This truth isn't going to work in the long term."

Draco's hand slips under her blouse to rest over her lace-covered breast. It is a little known fact that Hermione Granger has excellent taste in underwear. "I never said it was working now." He nibbles at her ear lobe. "Stop seeing me if I don't matter to you that much."

Violently, she shoves him away. There is hurt in her eyes, but also anticipation, because she knows how the game is played, knows what is at the end of the familiar argument. It is why she is here. Being with Draco is living in its purest form; pleasure-pain, guilt, passion and sex that makes her forget her own bloody name for a few hours.

Forget base jumping or other extreme sports. Nothing in her world could compare to _this_.

"I hate you."

Draco predictably calls her bluff. "You hate me so much that you risked your life to be captured so you could see me on St. Valentines Day?"

Hermione shoots him a mutinous expression. "Is it Valentines Day?" she asks, snootily. "I hadn't noticed." That was an outright lie. The stupid supermarket had been decked out, floor to ceiling, with pink streamers and love hearts. Also, Ginny has been blithering on about it for weeks.

"Really?" Draco replies, unconvinced. His voice now sounds like it has dropped an entire octave. "It happens to be exactly a year to the day I took you on the floor of my dungeons. While you writhed on the ground in chains. While the Manor burned to the ground above us."

Hermione's face turns scarlet. She knows how he enjoys reminding her about their first time. "That was- We were trapped! We both thought we were going to die!" More quietly, she reminds him, "You wouldn't leave me to burn..."

That not-so-simple act of conscience was what started the whole mess. See, it was _his_ fault. Death Eaters were not supposed to save otherwise-doomed Aurors and then shag them.

Draco's tender smile is ridiculously disarming. "I remember."

"Neither of us could have predicted that! It was an extreme situation."

"Of course," he agrees, "as extreme as letting yourself be kidnapped by men who could have torn you to pieces before turning you over to me, just so that we can meet on fucking Valentines Day." All trace of humour is gone. He doesn't take risks like she does. He doesn't need to, to feel alive.

"You're angry," she surmises.

"Hermione, darling. Certain parts of my person are bloody ecstatic to see you here. But as I am ruled by the contents of my head and not that of my trousers, I have to stress to you how utterly idiotic you are."

"Yes! I am idiotic for caring for a man who condones the murder of innocent people. Being here goes against everything I believe in." She envies his easy, self-serving brand of common sense. She wants temporary absolution.

Draco obliges her. His hands slide under her hair, kneading the base of her scalp. She closes her eyes and sighs. "Then don't waste my time. Do what you came here to do. Like all the other times. Forget that you're an Auror and that I'm a Death Eater."

"For the moment," she agrees, feeling like the traitor she is. She rests her cheek against his chest.

"That's all we'll need," Draco assures.

The sex is hostile. This made sense and was logical.

A lot of it was because they were essentially enemies and that was hard to forget, even when you did have your legs wrapped around the naked form of a man you were professionally obliged to 'shoot to kill'.

A big part of it was due to the fact that they sought to punish each other for things they could not help or change in their lives. Some of it was simply due to time constraints which meant that fast, hard sex was the more practical approach.

Mostly, however, the sex was hostile because that was what they preferred.

A little while later, Draco climbs up her body in time to cover her mouth with his hand. Her orgasm is shattering, and on this occasion, Hermione truly appreciates what that description entails. Her scream tapers down to a long moan. He kisses her and she tastes herself on his mouth. In another life, she would have been embarrassed by this, but not here. Not with Draco. Nothing shocks him. Nothing is forbidden or taboo here.

They_are_ taboo.

Even later still, they are both panting and slick with perspiration as he finally withdraws, limp and sated, from her body. What follows is a cessation of hostilities. They have come a very long way from when they were children, but the burden of life yet to come weighs down on them even more heavily than their colourful, shared past. This is respite.

Draco allows himself a brief moment of post-coital tenderness, holding her slender form against him as they lie on a dirty rug beside a dirty fireplace. Soft words and soft touches are shared. This is the ending that continues indefinitely until the next time.

Their recovery is quick because it must be. The sun is on the horizon now.

"What will it be this time?" he says into her sweat-dampened hair.

Hermione muses, "If I hit you over the head yet again, you're liable to develop brain damage."

They are both silent, thoughtful. "What did you use that other time in London?" Draco eventually asks.

"You mean last October?"

"No. At that tavern fiasco before Yule. That spell that made me see fucking heliotrope for a week." He still sounds so endearingly disconcerted over the incident.

She smiles into his shoulder. "Amellus. It's my patented specialty."

"Mm. That's the one."

She sits up, looking sleepy and rumpled and forbidden. "Don't you think you'd be wise to that spell by now, after being caught unawares once already?"

Draco looks up at her face, his gaze dips lower to her bare breasts. "I can be easily distracted."

She rolls her eyes. "Given the impression you gave those two goons before they left, I suppose you could say you let your debauched plans get the better of you."

Hermione walks barefooted to where her clothes are strewn across the dusty floor. Pulling on her underwear without the luxury of a quick clean up ought to be unpleasant, but she rather likes having Draco's taint on her when she returns to her normal life. She is beginning to suspect she really is every bit as complicated as he sometimes accuses her of being.

He sits up slowly, elbows on his knees. "This will have to be the last time for a long while," he says.

Though not at all what she wants to hear, she has to agree.

"Yes, I know."

When she turns to look at him again, he has pulled on his trousers. The Dark Mark is inky black against his pale forearm. He looks exactly like how she wants to remember him; dangerous, sexy. Impossible. He is every inch the Death Eater and also the man she happens to be in love with.

Silently, he hands her her wand. They never discuss this act of trust. It is easier to simply and silently acknowledge the fact that they could have killed each other many times over by now.

Maybe that is how it will end - Hermione ponders morosely - a final, inevitable betrayal, when either she or Draco, or indeed both, comes to their senses.

He leaves his trousers crudely unfastened, to give the impression of a sexual attack cut short. His hair is a silky tangle thanks to her questing fingers and his skin bears the marks from her hard, biting kisses and nails. For all intents and purposes, it looks like a planned assault gone awry.

He nods, ready.

She hits him with the spell in the middle of a lingering, goodbye kiss. Draco collapses soundlessly to the ground, bathed in a glowing, purple cloud, the hallmark of Amellus.

Hermione stands over him for a moment before she kneels down and gently re-arranges his limbs into a more comfortable position.

She returns to her life. The act is as easy as closing the door behind her and stepping into the twilight.

Outwardly, she is exhausted. She is sporting a cut lip, a few bruises and laments a lost day that might have been productively spent at work. Reports are lodged, tight hugs and 'thank Gods!' are received by her loved ones. Harry is predictably enraged and promises tighter security, better protocols. He blames himself, but then this is nothing new. The Ministry's printing press churns out a hundred more of Draco's Wanted Posters.

Hermione keeps one folded inside her sock drawer, even though Draco thinks he looks terrible in them.

On the inside, she is practically humming with a satisfaction that goes all the way to her bones. This feeling will drain from her, however, like any drug that is abused. Soon she will feel the need to be replenished.

Often, Hermione wonders if she could love Draco like she does, if they were both on the same side.

In the meantime, the war continues and part of her is glad.


End file.
